GETTING YOUR GRIP IN A NEW CITY. PART 2 

SECOND: LIVE SLOWLY

Good. You’ve embraced the chaos. No more rushing around now, time to start living slooowly. And don’t be lazy, it’s not about lying in bed all day because you cannot handle the urban jungle, or make the hunt for junkfood your only daily activity. What I mean, is to try to do as much as you can as you used to do in your country, but deal with the fact that your everyday life will go very slow in the beginning. Regular things will take time to be fullfilled. And you’ve gotta accept that. Because wrapping up your easy & comfy life from your hometown, putting it in your luggage, and unfold it when you arrived in that big strange city, and start living it right away, sorry but… that won’t work. 

My first days here started with the plan to do 3 or 4 meetups a day, do some practical shopping in between and see my friends after work. Woops. Bad plan. 

In reality, I spent an average of 4 hours in a taxicab, met up with one person, cancelled the other 2, and if I was lucky I could see my friends in the evening. But I learned a lot from this slowliness… After 2 weeks I’m already getting capable to manage my time, and my days become more efficient.

Right now, my average day looks like this: In the morning I try to do as much ‘solo’ tasks as possible. The time before noon is quite dead. Everybody stays at the office, or they just don’t like to meet up in the morning. So I check my mails, buy some small food, adapt my schedule for the next days, look for the places I have to be later on the day and last but not least I try to look for opportunities on different websites and try to get to know some businesses.

As from noon I try to do meetups. Can be with friends, can be an interesting talk and try to catch some opportunities. As mentioned in part one, I keep some mail replies for then, because there’s plenty of time in the taxi or at the meeting point since I’m always the first one to arrive.

My meetups have also become more selective. Since public transport is very complex here, I’m mostly depending on ‘taksi’ or ‘bajaj’ (a crossbreed of a minicar and a motorbike). That makes that more than 50% of my budget goes to these guys. That’s quite a lot, so if a meetup might be a little chitchat the other side of the city, I’m very likely to cancel it. For big opportunities however, I’ll go anywhere.

Some other things that might help you in your slow life…

• Try a couple of new things per week. You have nothing to lose, so you can only win. Order some food that you don’t know, it might be very good. Just make sure it’s not labeled as ‘spicy’ or you will die if you’re not an Asian. Or go to that other supermarket, maybe it’s cheaper or maybe they have more choice. Just simple new things. 
• Try to go to new places, if possible. Look it up in Google Maps and soon you will start making connections about the city in your mind. For me shopping malls work good as landmarks. Since everythings looks the same in Jakarta, I use the malls to know if I’m heading south, east, north or west. There are 70+ in Jakarta, and all the taxidrivers know them. 
• Learn the local language, and find out which words are most practical for you. Learn these first. For me those were the numbers, so I could know how much they want to charge me for a ride and I could negotiate with them.

And just when you’ve started to accept your slow life, you might find out that all of a sudden, you’re living it up in a pretty fast way in that concrete garden. Way to go!

Keep up with your life,

Nils

GETTING YOUR GRIP IN A NEW CITY . PART 1

FIRST: EMBRACE THE CHAOS

So that’s it. You’ve packed your stuff, got on the plane and arrived in a city that’s twice as big as your entire country. “Now what?” That’s probably the first thing that will pop up in your head, and no worries, that’s ok. Don’t be afraid of having this awkward feeling, just let it be a part of yourself. Never let it control you because that will make you paranoid. Don’t run around like a freshly decaptivated chicken screaming where to go and what to do. It’s better to just go with the flow, try to follow a bit of your intuition. And if you got it wrong, well ok, it ‘ll make you look silly but at least you’ll last longer than a few chicken seconds.

So go ahead and embrace the chaos. Say what? Yes, embrace the chaos. Let it happen. Get lost, get stuck in traffic, arrive too late when you meet up, take the wrong bus, and so on. It will help you to get the real vibe of the city. To feel how the city truly breathes in all its pollution. And you know, you will feel pretty ok with it, believe me. After all, it’s a fast way to learn things and it will make you feel proud of yourself when something works out. 

Chaos learned me:

If you meet up with friends, make sure you have something to do. They might show up an hour late. So I keep most of my emailreplies for then. You work twice as effective because you don’t get distracted by anything else.

Don’t wait for a taxicab during heavy rain, even if you’re under a roof. Just don’t. 

Going for the unusual way pays itself already back after one time. 

Listen to advice of local people. They are always right. Even if you’re truly convinced that in your society things work perfect like you know it. Well, you’re in a different place now.

If you think: “Where the hell are we going?”, you’re probably going the right way. 

If you think that the place looks familiar, then you’ve never been there before.

There’s always a way out of the chaos. Just make sure you carry at least 100 000 rupiah (10 dollar) for when it goes really the wrong way.

Truly believing

Nils